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Second blast furnace fired up at ThyssenKrupp CSA in Brazil

Blast furnace 2 at the ThyssenKrupp CSA steel mill in Santa Cruz/Rio de Janeiro state was fired up on schedule and without problems on Thursday evening, December 16, 2010 – five months after blast furnace 1, which is now producing…

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JGC sells affiliate interests to KBR

JGC Corp. (Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) today announced that it will be selling its 44.94% share interest in M.W. Kellogg Ltd. (MWKL; Greenford, Middlesex, U.K.; www.mwkl.co.uk) to KBR (Houston; www.kbr.com). MWKL is an affiliate of both companies. Following the transaction, MWKL will become…

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Aker Solutions: Gasification/liquefaction plant in U.S.

Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC has awarded Aker Solutions (www.akersolutions.com) the front-end engineering and design (FEED) package for its Medicine Bow Industrial Gasification & Liquefaction Plant located near the town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Aker Solutions successfully completed a…

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BASF expands superabsorbent polymer plants

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) plans to expand its existing superabsorbent polymer production capacities at its Antwerp, Belgium and Freeport, U.S. sites. Gradual debottlenecking and technical expansion measures are to raise annual capacity by 70,000 metric tons (m.t.)  to a…

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Stamicarbon urea technology for China

Stamicarbon B.V. (Sittard, the Netherlands; www.stamicarbon.com), the licensing and IP Center of Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (www.mairetecnimont.it), has signed a license agreement with Inner Mongolia Bodashidi Co., Ltd. in the Peoples’ Republic of China for a urea plant with a capacity…

U.S. chemical industry production improves amid positive economic data

Production of chemicals in the U.S. rose in November, and most recent economic data is positive, according to the latest edition of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com.) Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report. Strong gains were observed in…

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Haldor Topsøe to supply tail-gas treatment catalysts to BASF

Haldor Topsøe S/A (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) has entered into an agreement with BASF’s Catalysts division on the marketing of Topsøe’s line of tail gas treatment catalysts for sulfur recovery units. Tail-gas treatment catalysts are used to remove sulfur compounds as…

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BASF & Sinopec to further expand Nanjing JV

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of BASF-YPC, BASF and Sinopec have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly explore the further expansion of their integrated petrochemical joint venture, BASF-YPC Co. The new projects under consideration will extend the…

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Borealis upgrades at Porvoo PE plant

At yesterday’s meeting in Vienna, the Borealis (www.borealisgroup.com) supervisory board approved a €17-million investment to upgrade one of its polyethylene (PE) plants in Porvoo, Finland. The project includes a new ethylene compressor as well as an upgrade of the monomer…

Increased natural gas production, declining energy imports projected in EIA report

Natural gas production in the U.S. will be 25% greater from 2011 to 2035 than previous assessments, and the share of U.S. energy consumption accounted for by imported energy will decline to 18% of the total by 2035, according to…